When Broadcom first announced its intention to acquire Brocade for $5.9 billion in November 2016, neither party expected it to take a year for the deal to close. Yet that’s what happened, with formal completion of the acquisition closing officially only on Nov. 17, 2017.
“We are pleased to complete this transaction, which strengthens Broadcom’s position as a leading provider of enterprise storage and networking solutions and enables us to better serve our OEM customers,” Hock Tan, president and chief executive officer of Broadcom, stated. “Broadcom has a track record of successfully integrating and growing companies we acquire, enabling us to offer customers a leading portfolio of best-in-class franchises across a diverse set of technologies.”
“We intend to invest in and grow the Brocade business to further enhance its capabilities in mission-critical storage networking,” he added.
The Brocade that Broadcom has acquired isn’t the same networking vendor the company was a year ago. As part of the acquisition terms, Broadcom noted that it did not want the IP networking components of Brocade’s business, in order to avoid being in direct competition with its own customers.
The data center networking piece of Brocade’s IP networking business was sold to Extreme Networks in a deal that closed on Oct. 30. Brocade has also sold its virtual application delivery controller (vADC) business to Pulse Secure in a deal announced on June 1. Brocade’s Vyatta business was sold at the same time to AT&T.
Perhaps the largest part of the Brocade IP networking business sell-off is the Ruckus Wireless unit, which was sold to ARRIS in an $800 million deal that was first announced in February 2017.
As a Broadcom business unit, Brocade’s focus is on storage networking. Jack Rondoni, who was formerly the senior vice president of Storage Networking at Brocade now takes over as general manager of the new Broadcom business unit.
“Broadcom provides us with the scale, resources and complementary capabilities to accelerate growth, execute on our strategic initiatives and extend our market leadership in storage area networking,” Rondoni stated. “We share a common culture of innovation and execution, and we look forward to the exciting new growth opportunities we will have as part of the Broadcom team.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
